Guests describe moment of terror

A body is removed from the rubble of the collapsed building

JERUSALEM -- Survivors of Jerusalem's wedding celebration disaster have been describing the moment that the floor gave way beneath them as they danced.

Around 600 guests and 55 staff plunged from the fourth floor to the basement as the building caved in.

Guest Leah Hassin, 49, said from her hospital bed: "We were dancing and the floor began to slope, so I went to the top of the slope and continued dancing.

"But it sloped even more. Suddenly I realised there was nothing under my feet. I was rolling in the air, as if I was parachuting but there was no parachute.

VIDEO The collapse of the dance floor happened right in front of a video camera recording the event (Warning: disturbing video) (May 24) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

"Instead, I landed on my back and all I could see was a huge hole where the floor had been."

Amir Lipski, 47, said the floor collapsed after a crowd of guests gathered in a circle and began stomping their feet.

They hoisted the father of the groom, Tsion Sror, on a chair and started dancing in a Jewish wedding tradition.

"You could feel the beat on the floor," Lipski said from his hospital bed, adding that at first, he thought the tremor was an earthquake that would stop in a second.

"And suddenly I felt everything beginning to collapse. A hole formed underneath us and I began to free-fall.

"I felt objects hitting me and I felt like I was falling forever. As I fell, my wife and I hugged each other," he said.

GALLERY Scenes from the hall's collapse    VIDEO A wedding hall collapses in Jerusalem, trapping scores of people inside (May 24) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)     AUDIO Jerusalem's Mayor Ehud Olmert: I suspect that there were violations 332K/30 sec. AIFF or WAV sound Lt. Col. Olivier Rafowicz: The best crew in Israel were all summoned for the rescue 384K/36 sec. AIFF or WAV sound

The two fell 90 feet as lower-floor ceilings gave way. They ended up on a heap of rubble with a table over their heads.

"When we reached the bottom there was a second of silence and screams. It was a terrible thing to see people crushed. You don't know if under every stone it could be a person."

The two walked out from the rubble with little help. Lipski had broken ribs and cuts on his head and shoulders. His wife was in intensive care with a serious head injury.

Five guests had remained seated around a corner table to watch as others started to celebrate the marriage of Assi and Keren Sror with the stomping, heart-pounding dancing typical of Jewish weddings.

Rescue workers found them on Friday -- still near the table, a couple embracing -- after they plunged to their deaths.

Yehuda Meshi Zahav, head of an ultra-Orthodox volunteer unit said it appeared the table and chairs had slid down the floor as it began to cave in.

"A couple was hugging each other," he told The Associated Press, describing the scene.

In the panic and dark of the rubble-filled crater, Yuval Sror, a relative of the groom, lost his daughter, learning only on Friday morning that she had been in surgery.

He said he was among the dancers celebrating when the floor went out from under them.

"I hugged my son tightly," he told Israeli television. "We fell one floor and then another and a floor fell on us until we were at the bottom, with all the rubble and stones on us.

"We couldn't do anything," he said. "And then my son cried: 'Daddy help me! Pull me out!"'

Like many Israeli wedding halls, the building in the Talpiot industrial area in southern Jerusalem, is isolated from residential areas so that the revelry can continue into the early hours without disturbing neighbours.